Black Box Strategy: I Spy With a Little Lie

BLACK BOX STRATEGY:
I SPY WITH A LITTLE LIE

Over the weekend, I was reading a Los Angeles Times article that aggravated me and I wanted to share the article with you and why I was slowly losing my patience with it.

The article was about black boxes that are being proposed for every car in the United States and while I knew that the “black box” idea has been slowly implemented by insurance companies for lower rates, I realized that the option or choice was offered. However, soon the black boxes will be mandatory.

This Orwellian technology is being touted as a way to improve public safety and the sad thing is that the public is responding favorably to these boxes. They are also responding favorably to another proposal that comes with the boxes, paying highway tax for every mile traveled.

The Los Angeles times reports that, "The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America's major roads."

One thing that needs to be emphasized is that over the next decade congress will slowly bring about the tax per mile law as the box will keep mileage, and provide another revenue and surveillance source.

Not only will the box give real time tracking of you and your vehicle, citizens will actually pay for this through mile by mile taxing.

-All of your driving trips
-Be able to ascertain when you are at home and when you leave
-Know when you are at work
-Establish patterns of all activity such as when you shop, when you buy groceries, what bars you frequent, etc.

It will also flag drivers who attend certain types of political rallies, activist meetings, practice at gun ranges or other “yellow” spots that authorities see as cautionary locales for plotting domestic terrorism.

This can also make you susceptible to punitive tax audits. If there is ever a suspicion that you are participating in unlawful activity, you could be the victim of surprise raids and routine extortion that now is reality in the United States.

“Several states and cities are nonetheless moving ahead on their own. The most eager is Oregon, which is enlisting 5,000 drivers in the country’s biggest experiment. Those drivers will soon pay the mileage fees instead of gas taxes to the state.”

As I was reading that I wanted to know where these people exist and how they are completely ignorant to what these boxes have the potential to be used for let alone the tax per mile that they will have to pat along with outrageous gas taxes.

Fox News reports, "However, economists and civil libertarians are concerned about the Oregon pilot project in large part because some mileage meters can track and record residents’ every vehicular move."

The ACLU is concerned about privacy issues and the twisted thing is that those who wish to volunteer do not see the slippery slope of rights violations that can occur with the use of such surveillance tools.

The more we volunteer information to the government about what we do the more we embrace the police state and the surveillance apparatus that is out of control.

The very idea of people volunteering for such an endeavor speaks to the lost interest of Americans to uphold constitutional values.

Fox News continues, "Oregon is purportedly considering several tracking methods for the pilot project’s 5,000 volunteers ahead of the 2015 start date – essentially allowing them to install mileage meters connected their vehicles’ odometers or GPS systems that could better track non-taxable miles on private and out-of-state roads. The average cost of GPS is now about $200."

Can you believe that there are 5,000 people willing to pay for the systems and then have the tracking happen and accept paying the bill for their travel?

How can they be so stupid? How can they not see how this will not benefit anything but the ever-encroaching surveillance state?

The Washington Times reports that "only 13 states have laws protecting vehicle owners from open access to event-data recorder information. Many of those have exceptions that allow access with owner consent or court order, or for repair-shop diagnosis, vehicle-safety research or dispatching of emergency medical personnel. A few states prohibit insurance companies from demanding data before paying a claim."

Most states impose no restrictions that would prevent black boxes from becoming on-board spy devices.

When I was a kid my father bought me a little black box bank. It had a little slot that you would put coin in. When the coin was placed in the groove on the box, the box would shake and moan. A green hand would pop out of a trap door and take the coin. The irony is now that a black box will be required for 96 percent of cars sold by next year and the greedy monster hand wants to overreach in both its collection revenue and spying on the American people.

We now have to accept the fact that government policy is now the policy of overreach and the public does not attempt to slap the hand that wants to reach out of the black box and steal money and spy on you.

I believe that we can officially say that the United States of America is proud to call itself a “surveillance state.” The surveillance apparatus in the United States has grown to a level never before seen and as it is being implemented there does not seem to be any opposition to it which indicates that with all of the warnings and all of the slippery slope philosophies being doled out by the independent media, the surveillance state is now being accepted a s a necessary evil and that most Americans secretly condone the technological prison that is being constructed.

The perfect panopticon is being hatched in the United States and it seems to be welcomed, endorsed and even fought for. It is time to admit that when we say we are free it is only a state of mind and a metaphor for the guilt most Americans have for watching it die on closed circuit television.

International governments have been taken aback by the extent of the NSA spying apparatus are now questioning to what extent they want their internet traffic funneling through U.S. servers and ISP's.

This is bad for international business, but the attitude of most Americans is “who needs them, we are the USA and we make the rules.” Such attitudes for people who are always under the watchful eye of big brother and soon will be under the robotic eye of a predator drone that will fire at will if it is programmed to.

The lack of protesting against such out of control spying is either a result of future shock or ignorance. I really can’t put my finger on any of it.

It all begs the question what are we all afraid of? Have things changed all that much that we need to be under so much surveillance?

Whether American's want to admit it or not, it must be declared that from this moment forward intelligence gathering in not only focused primarily on the criminal activities of state enemies but on American citizens and the consensus have accepted it as a necessary evil. From this moment forward, we must realize that the Fourth Amendment has been struck from the constitution.

Now that America has accepted the surveillance state without protest. It is important to point out from this moment forward that the NSA and there overreach of Americans’ communications undermines basic principles of privacy and since there has been no objection from the people the Fourth Amendment is no longer being enforced.

As this violation of what was once an important fundamental right of American freedom continues to go unabated, it is proposed that the future of communication and discourse in the United States will be handicapped. Open discourse is essential for a democratic society. Spying and surveillance will seriously alter the relationship between government and its citizenry.

The following groups will be affected, anyone that is affiliated with any media, lawyers, and ordinary citizens who will have to ponder the consequences of conduct, which includes visiting any controversial website or participate in any particular meeting that can even be construed as anti-government.

Any important ideas essential to democracy will diminish. The Fourth Amendment is officially dead when Americans now demand their surveillance and pay more taxes in order to keep the surveillance state intact.

Clyde, the whole thought of this makes me physically ill. Are people that naive that they cannot fathom the ramifications here, and realize they truly ARE handing over their 4th Amendment protection? “If it saves just one life” mentality… and the “I don’t have anything to hide” lemming group-think. *sigh*

Jennifer Spier

Un f*ing believable!!!! Actually, totally believable since the NSA is already tracking all of our communications. Made me think that they are trying to play God. I remember being told as a child that god watches every thing you do and knows everything you are thinking (talk about a mind fk.) and that you would be accountable in the end. This is terrifying. Are we going to be “judged” now? By who’s standards? What punishments? Maybe I’m taking this to far, but oh my god, it’s truly frightening!!! Please excuse the language but I rarely use the F word and only when it seems appropriate to express my extreme feelings about something.

Zeke (admitting he’s human)

I would have went with the “Gee an awful lot of inconsistencies are turning up in the LAX shooting” theme. Like the fact eyewitness accounts have reported a “shotgun” being used, not an “assault rifle”

Which is typical we saw either the police pulling a shotgun from the car of Adam Lanza at Newtown, while the media screamed “ASSAULT RIFLE”!!!

And yes I fully retract my last statement from last week basically saying that; I believe it was an actual organic random massacre. And that those questioning it are basically “poisoning the well” of conspiracy minded peoples.

I apologize.

Other than that, the black-box thing, kinda interesting, the fact they’ve been meaning to implement this for a long time now….

Hmmm, they’re not putting one in my car and I’m not buying a new one, but, and sadly so, most people will embrace worshiping at the alter of consumerism, gladly taking that new status symbol with all it’s Orwellian surveillance….

Zeke

Sorry see the grammar errors there, that’s what happens changing thought in mid-sentence while drinking heavily…. Don’t care to explain, U get it.

a!@#$%^&*()

if we are paying taxes for them to make and maintain the roads? why shall we have to pay extra to do what we all ready pay for in taxes

Zeke

It’s all about censorship, it’s all about violating our right to FREEDOM of ASSOCIATION, a freedom the Supreme Court decided was part of the first amendment; “Although the First Amendment does not explicitly mention freedom of association, the Supreme Court ruled, in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama (1958),[208] that this freedom was protected by the Amendment and that privacy of membership was an essential part of this freedom.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Freedom_of_association.”…

Think about it, it’s like the internet, people that a year ago had large social media friend-lists, that they could speak pretty freely with and feel they could trust a certain amount of privacy there…. Well due to NSA revelations, tons of them have clammed up.

The same thing will happen when reality kicks in and even those who openly embraced this Orwellian garbage realize the full extent of it’s capabilities.

Another way to instill fear and manage the herd. Even completely innocent people won’t want to risk getting mixed up in stuff, or accused of being parked at a business where potential illegal activity is going on.

This “Black Box” is a direct violation of the 4th amendment, that’s why the government wants to claim no responsibility, and the companies are going to want to just suggest it’s a “term of service”….. Total horseshit on both parts….

And the government could afford the road work… Time to cut the welfare programs for the rich, end the bail-outs, or our policy of them, and that whole concept of “to big to fail”, because “to big to fail” really means to big to exist… Time to make many corporations pay their damn TAXES for a change, they can afford it, they just won’t have as much to bribe our politicians with. All manner of means of paying for road work, cut the military budget, cut aid to Israel, bring our soldiers home and give them the jobs, allow the war profiteer corporations to invest some of the money they fleeced from tax payers on it….

But the whole purpose for the “black box” thing is total control, and stifling of activists and organizers. Put Big Brother in the car with you, suddenly we’ll all be on bicycles….

Lisa in Texas

Interesting show as usual, Clyde. I love your show, but as always, you get me thinking. Crap. I think you are really on to something. They started with the local police here. They started this about 4-5 years ago in a local Police Department as a way of monitoring the Officers when they were on duty, as well as have info on their driving. They told the Officers it was in case of a wreck or such, but they can tell EVERYTHING, including how long someone is sitting in front of a Starbucks or where individual cars are.

Robert Wykes

Clyde, you are doing a great job of trying to expose the true evil that does indeed live in this world. However, in this brainwashed, manipulated reality, most are unaware and disbelieving. We are all brainwashed, by our environments, our media, and our flag waving peers. It is up to each individual to decide to break free of the habit of accepting what they are told and to think rationally for themselves. Thank you for being a public voice for the ones of us, who know that we don’t really know anything more, than there is definitely more. We look at things with wonder, and question everything, with the hope that the truth can be exposed and change our existence for the better of all of humanity. To all of you who do not believe that you are brainwashed to some degree, well then, It worked very well on you.

Marilyn Beaumont

Excellent article, Clyde. Scary stuff. Reminds me of how Hitler was able to do his deeds, a little at a time.

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About Clyde Lewis

Clyde is a powerful voice in the field of paranormal news and commentary. With a diverse background in news, acting, writing and radio, he entertains and captivates audiences across multiple platforms. Lewis’ career in radio began in Utah in 1982 and he created Ground Zero in 1995 in Salt Lake City. Lewis has produced Ground Zero programs online, on radio and on television. The program (which takes its name from the scientific definition of the term) joined FM News 101 KXL in 2011 and consistently ranks #1 in the market.